Afflictions Eclipsed by Glory: HOMOSEXUALITY: Why God DOES cares about the biological gender of those in a romantic relationship.
I think that one of the issues that used to plague me the most about opposition to homosexuality in Christianity, and gay marriage was that I saw “love as love”, regardless of the genders involved. When people would bring up other examples like pedophilia, adultery, or other dynamics where…
I have a few questions for ferretdokhtar. If something is not prescribed in the Bible, does that make it sin? You argue that because the Bible gives no alternative, gender-specific matrimony is required, and other forms are sin. Yes, God designed gender with matrimony in mind; I don’t disagree. However, God designed hands to work, mouths to speak and eat, and eyes to see. Deaf or blind or mute people each fall outside of the intended design for their parts, and no where in Scripture do we learn God-prescribed alternatives for seeing or hearing or speaking. But that does not make immoral sign language or braille or hearing aids or glasses or walking canes. God’s design for the ears was not arbitrary, but to the deaf person, they serve only as a reminder of what—Original Sin? Sin infected God’s design and created deafness? What if deafness isn’t a by-product of sin, but an actual God-ordained design he himself desires for people? What if the problem isn’t in the deafness but the problem that no-one else knows sign language?
Homosexuality may or may not be a by-product of the fall. It’s really not important, I don’t think. Because what we must argue is NOT about what God intended, but what God calls immoral. And God’s design or intention for something does not allow us to categorize things as moral or immoral.
I do not think that we in our own knowledge can fashion something better than what God intended. But how do we know what he intends? Not by prescription or design, no. But by fruit. (Matthew 7:17-20, or John 15:8 “This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples,” and most obviously, Galatians 5.) Colossians 1 indicates that every good work bears good fruit. A gay matrimony centered in Christ can bear good fruit, right? In order for this to be untrue, we must prove that it is impossible for a gay marriage to bear good fruit.
The problem I have with your argument can be summed in this idea:
I cannot disagree with the rightness of male-female marriage. It is abundantly clear throughout Scripture and history that God affirms his design of the male-female marriage. However, this does not mean gender itself is a requirement for marriage. Gender identity is not Male and Female, and neither is the sex binary. It seems to me that an intersex person does not fit into your interpretation of Scripture.
How do we know if something is outside of God’s design? Or, more specifically, how do we know when to classify something as outside of God’s design? You suggest that all aberrations are outside of God’s design. If only 2% of people are deaf, then deafness is an aberration and is outside of God’s design. God creates a male-female marriage so all others are aberration and outside of his design. But a covenant should not be broken. Divorce it outside of his design. But when a man raped a married woman, what was he supposed to do? What does God’s design say?
These nuances reveal a problem about the design argument: that the rightness of something does not require the wrongness of its alternative.
(Source: ferretical)
